Was the DUNLOP MAXPLY MCENROE used by Mac in 1982 just a paintjob?

So was the wood Dunlop Maxply McEnroe used by Mac in 1982 just a paintjob?

Discussion started in another thread see below, it would be interesting to hear other opinions!

Originally Posted by jimbo333
Well apparently Mac didn't like the retail version of the wood Maxply McEnroe, it was made for him so i don't know what they were doing?
And apparently I heard in 1982 Mac was actually using the Dunlop Maxply Fort he used in 1981, under the Maxply McEnroe paintjob! This would explain the brown grip to some extent. Anyone know anything about this?

Originally posted by Pauloraz
For sure, the racquet used by Mac was not the standard Maxply Mcenroe, but I don't think it was a paintjob of the maxply fort...He started with a prototype at the end of '81-beginning '82, which I guess (from the pics) was a fort with a glassfiber instead of wood reinforce in the lower part of the head (dunlop written in red on the handle and light brown wooden reinforce above the grip, as the fort).
Later he switched to a racquet where this reinforce is dark brown, much more than the retail maxply mcenroe version. It might be a fort painted to mimic the retail mcenroe or a graphite instead of wood reinforce...I've never been able to solve the mystery!!

There has been quite a bit variation to the color of the wood on the Maxply McEnroe. I have had some that has been very light in color and some that has been very dark and in between.

1982 Wimbledon is using the lighter color wood reinforcement above the grip. At other times Mac is using a racquet with much darker wood reinforcement. I have found that there has been a wide variety in wood color used there.

A couple from my collection to show the difference

I firmly believe that McEnroe actually used the Maxply McEnroe and that he won the 1981 Wimbledon and US Open with a Customized Maxply Fort.

There has been quite a bit variation to the color of the wood on the Maxply McEnroe. I have had some that has been very light in color and some that has been very dark and in between.

1982 Wimbledon is using the lighter color wood reinforcement above the grip. At other times Mac is using a racquet with much darker wood reinforcement. I have found that there has been a wide variety in wood color used there.

A couple from my collection to show the difference

I firmly believe that McEnroe actually used the Maxply McEnroe and that he won the 1981 Wimbledon and US Open with a Customized Maxply Fort.

Click to expand...

Great photo! One of the best looking rackets ever made i reckon.

Interesting to hear your opinion, I was only going on what I read previously. I would be interested in seeing a close-up of his racket being used in early 1982.

I agree with vsbabolat, at wimbledon 1982 he was using the retail version, or something very very similar... But at the end of '82-beginning '83 he was using something different... to me, the reinforce above the grip is dark and it seems either a piece of graphite or just painted. The pics below are taken at the davis cup final '82 and at the master '82 (january 83).

The 2nd generation of Maxply McEnroes had a different type of wood in the flake that ran from the handle to mid-shaft. McEnroe wanted a different feel and they started testing different wood layups. The dark wood you see in late 82 and part of 83 was African Blackwood or Black Walnut.

I agree with vsbabolat, at wimbledon 1982 he was using the retail version, or something very very similar... But at the end of '82-beginning '83 he was using something different... to me, the reinforce above the grip is dark and it seems either a piece of graphite or just painted. The pics below are taken at the davis cup final '82 and at the master '82 (january 83).

Click to expand...

At that same Wimbledon he was using racquets that had very dark wood also.
Dark wood flake 1982 Wimbledon Final

The 2nd generation of Maxply McEnroes had a different type of wood in the flake that ran from the handle to mid-shaft. McEnroe wanted a different feel and they started testing different wood layups. The dark wood you see in late 82 and part of 83 was African Blackwood or Black Walnut.

Click to expand...

Yes, in 1983 the wood flake on retail was different also. The natural wood section that was part of the flake wood was shorter and much thicker than on the earlier production and the wood was darker.

I don't know...to me, the dark reinforce is just painting, not the colour of a specific kind of wood, althougt pics taken indoor may make colours more "glossy" and artificial than they are.

The second point is that (see below) that maxply mcenroe is much more "beefer" than the standard one in the throat...the retail mcenroe has just a thin reinforce in fiberglass, and the section of the wood in the throath is very similar to the top of the head... here the throath is much more thicker, which is what you have with the standard maxply, where the reiforce is in wood...and here the reinforce itself seems somehow thicker thand the retail version...it is "curvy" where it begins in the middle of the head, exactely as in the standard maxply fort...

(Or maybe it is just a customised racquet, with a much more beefer wood throath and a thicker fiberglass reinforce...)

In the end, I think that jimbo might be true, i.e. that at some point mac started to use again a standard maxply fort paintjobbed as a maxply mcenroe. Remember that the mcenroe is much more stiffer than the fort, and that mac developed shoulder problems which made him switching to the 200g in march '83. In his autobio he says that when he tried the 200g he was practicing with his "trusty" maxply...

Don't know, really, I have not "the" answer, my feeling is that it is either a fort paintjobbed as a mcenroe or a customised version, but I might be wrong, of course! ;-)

It's not paint.....one of the beauties of wood is that even from the same plank you will have different colors and shades and grains.....etc etc etc. they were not painted nor was it any type of graphite inlay.

If you were to look at a stack of Fila's or Maxplys or even the Wilson advantage with its use of dark walnut you had a very large variance in wood colors.

I don't know...to me, the dark reinforce is just painting, not the colour of a specific kind of wood, althougt pics taken indoor may make colours more "glossy" and artificial than they are.

Click to expand...

I'm no vintage racquet sleuth, but I do know something about color correction and the print/photography industry of the early 80's. If you look at Mac's eyes, the shadow areas of his hair, and the inside of mouth, all you see is black, no shape, no detail, just black. The color has shifted, the subtle shadow tones have compressed, from dark brown to black everywhere in the photo, not just the dark wood. If you look closely at the tip end of the V-shaped dark wood reinforcement in the photo above, you can see that, despite the awful tone compression, there is still a little wood color managing to show through. It's not quite as dark as the area that is a true black, the part in the throat that says "Maxply McEnroe" Notice this occurs with all of the images here in the thread that are scans of 80's printed material, where as the images that were never printed, the images that are original raw photography, look completely different. It is about the printing process, not the racquet.

In an effort to keep the total amount of ink hitting paper low, (too much ink, especially on crappy paper, creates a big mess) it's a common practice today to do what is called under color removal, and or grey component replacement. What this means is that in dark shadow areas, you remove a percentage of cyan, magenta, and yellow ink and replace it with black ink. Back in the 80's, the pro color jockeys did color separation by hand, by cutting masks and what not. It often yielded a result which, at the end of the day, was not an accurate depiction of real life color. This was especially true if the person working on the job, had no idea what the actual color was supposed to be (which I think is highly likely in this case).

Today we have computers and icc profiles to manage color from raw photography to press, and while the objective is the same, (keep the total amount of ink low, and appropriate to paper quality) the colors are much more true to life. But color management for press back in the 80's was highly inaccurate, more art and intuition than science for sure.

I don't know...to me, the dark reinforce is just painting, not the colour of a specific kind of wood, althougt pics taken indoor may make colours more "glossy" and artificial than they are.

The second point is that (see below) that maxply mcenroe is much more "beefer" than the standard one in the throat...the retail mcenroe has just a thin reinforce in fiberglass, and the section of the wood in the throath is very similar to the top of the head... here the throath is much more thicker, which is what you have with the standard maxply, where the reiforce is in wood...and here the reinforce itself seems somehow thicker thand the retail version...it is "curvy" where it begins in the middle of the head, exactely as in the standard maxply fort...

(Or maybe it is just a customised racquet, with a much more beefer wood throath and a thicker fiberglass reinforce...)

In the end, I think that jimbo might be true, i.e. that at some point mac started to use again a standard maxply fort paintjobbed as a maxply mcenroe. Remember that the mcenroe is much more stiffer than the fort, and that mac developed shoulder problems which made him switching to the 200g in march '83. In his autobio he says that when he tried the 200g he was practicing with his "trusty" maxply...

Don't know, really, I have not "the" answer, my feeling is that it is either a fort paintjobbed as a mcenroe or a customised version, but I might be wrong, of course! ;-)

Click to expand...

I was only going on what others had said, I really don't know which racket he was using at this point. It seems most likely to be some sort of custom racket I think personally.

I'm no vintage racquet sleuth, but I do know something about color correction and the print/photography industry of the early 80's. If you look at Mac's eyes, the shadow areas of his hair, and the inside of mouth, all you see is black, no shape, no detail, just black. The color has shifted, the subtle shadow tones have compressed, from dark brown to black everywhere in the photo, not just the dark wood. If you look closely at the tip end of the V-shaped dark wood reinforcement in the photo above, you can see that, despite the awful tone compression, there is still a little wood color managing to show through. It's not quite as dark as the area that is a true black, the part in the throat that says "Maxply McEnroe" Notice this occurs with all of the images here in the thread that are scans of 80's printed material, where as the images that were never printed, the images that are original raw photography, look completely different. It is about the printing process, not the racquet.

In an effort to keep the total amount of ink hitting paper low, (too much ink, especially on crappy paper, creates a big mess) it's a common practice today to do what is called under color removal, and or grey component replacement. What this means is that in dark shadow areas, you remove a percentage of cyan, magenta, and yellow ink and replace it with black ink. Back in the 80's, the pro color jockeys did color separation by hand, by cutting masks and what not. It often yielded a result which, at the end of the day, was not an accurate depiction of real life color. This was especially true if the person working on the job, had no idea what the actual color was supposed to be (which I think is highly likely in this case).

Today we have computers and icc profiles to manage color from raw photography to press, and while the objective is the same, (keep the total amount of ink low, and appropriate to paper quality) the colors are much more true to life. But color management for press back in the 80's was highly inaccurate, more art and intuition than science for sure.